[Gormenghast] "Lover in the Night" (PG)
Author's Note: written for comment_fic's "Author's Choice, Author's Choice, vampire AU" Mild Steerpike/Fushcia. This one is hard *not* to do, since the Overlook Press omnibus edition of the Gormenghast books has a critical essay in it which points out Steerpike's vampire-like aspects.
"A woman waiting for her demon lover", Fuschia had read that phrase in a book, but it had soon become a reality. Dr. Prunesquallor had hinted that something was amiss with her health, that she was looking pale some mornings. What she did not tell him was that those mornings coincided with nights when her lover visited her, nights when Steerpike's pale shadow would darken the frame of her window and she would invite him in, first into her chamber and then into her arms. Those strange eyes looking into her soul mesmerized her, eyes she could drown her soul in, and his words held her in thrall, words of promise, words of poetry, promises to make her his queen of the night, if she would only give in and drink from him as he drank from her, turning her from the day to the night.
Yet she hesitated. She was of the blood, and yet she was considered of little consequence. She was only the daughter of the Earl, the throne and coronet, the ivy and the stone were never to be hers. These belonged to Titus, and if she turned away from the day, she might not see him so often as she did now, for he would be a creature of the day and she of the night, a childe of the being he despised. But was she ready to sacrifice the sun and the blue sky for the moon and the black sky? Was she ready to stop counting white clouds and to start to count the stars instead? She let him take from her, but she hesitated to take that which he offered. Was a passing number of days a fair trade for eternal nights? Still she let him take from her, hoping that one night she might have the courage to choose between one and the other.
"A woman waiting for her demon lover", Fuschia had read that phrase in a book, but it had soon become a reality. Dr. Prunesquallor had hinted that something was amiss with her health, that she was looking pale some mornings. What she did not tell him was that those mornings coincided with nights when her lover visited her, nights when Steerpike's pale shadow would darken the frame of her window and she would invite him in, first into her chamber and then into her arms. Those strange eyes looking into her soul mesmerized her, eyes she could drown her soul in, and his words held her in thrall, words of promise, words of poetry, promises to make her his queen of the night, if she would only give in and drink from him as he drank from her, turning her from the day to the night.
Yet she hesitated. She was of the blood, and yet she was considered of little consequence. She was only the daughter of the Earl, the throne and coronet, the ivy and the stone were never to be hers. These belonged to Titus, and if she turned away from the day, she might not see him so often as she did now, for he would be a creature of the day and she of the night, a childe of the being he despised. But was she ready to sacrifice the sun and the blue sky for the moon and the black sky? Was she ready to stop counting white clouds and to start to count the stars instead? She let him take from her, but she hesitated to take that which he offered. Was a passing number of days a fair trade for eternal nights? Still she let him take from her, hoping that one night she might have the courage to choose between one and the other.